@ProfDBernstein: In World War II, the Allies ki...
@ProfDBernstein
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Nov 13, 2025
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In World War II, the Allies killed approximately 750,000 children, some German, some Japanese, some from friendly, occupied people like the French. That's the nature of war; the Allies undoubtedly could have been more careful about civilian deaths, but they couldn't have avoided a death toll well into the six figures.
But I have never, ever, seen anyone say, "you know, World War II shows the Allies were evil because so many children were killed by them," because everyone understands that civilians, including kids, get killed in war, and when one side is "the good guys" and the other side the bad guys, it's the bad guys who bear primary responsibility for the civilian deaths, assuming reasonable care by the "good guys".
So... I can't tell you how many posts I've seen saying "Israel killed 'X' number of children in Gaza [the X is generally a wild exaggeration, but surely it's in the thousands], this means Israel is evil and has lost the right to any support, etc.
What does this juxtaposition tell us? That the concern is not actually over how many children were killed, because if that were the concern, we'd also condemn the US and UK for fighting WWII, killing many, many times the number of children.
Rather, the claims about deaths of children really are a substitute for "we don't think Israel is the good guys in this conflict." Maybe we disbelieve the very real atrocities that Hamas committed on 10/7, and it's promise to repeat it over and over. Maybe we don't believe that Hamas really believes its stated genocidal and antisemitic ideology. Maybe we believe all that, but think that Israel somehow provoked it, and thus doesn't have the right to impose casualties in response. Or maybe we actually do support Hamas, and want it to murder or expel the Jews of Israel.
Regardless, the tears shed for the kids are crocodile tears; none of these people called for Hamas to surrender and release the hostages to end the war, nor did they call for Egypt to let civilians, at least civilian children flee into Egypt, nor did they even call for Hamas not to embed itself in civilian infrastructure, putting children at risk. For that matter, they almost never even criticized the relevant actors for these actions.
So, again, crocodile tears. It's not that they believe that war is never just, nor do they fail to recognize that war in an urban environment inevitably means civilian casualties, including children. They just are somewhere between being neutral between Hamas and Israel, and favoring Hamas, and children are an evocative, emotional way to justify it.
But I have never, ever, seen anyone say, "you know, World War II shows the Allies were evil because so many children were killed by them," because everyone understands that civilians, including kids, get killed in war, and when one side is "the good guys" and the other side the bad guys, it's the bad guys who bear primary responsibility for the civilian deaths, assuming reasonable care by the "good guys".
So... I can't tell you how many posts I've seen saying "Israel killed 'X' number of children in Gaza [the X is generally a wild exaggeration, but surely it's in the thousands], this means Israel is evil and has lost the right to any support, etc.
What does this juxtaposition tell us? That the concern is not actually over how many children were killed, because if that were the concern, we'd also condemn the US and UK for fighting WWII, killing many, many times the number of children.
Rather, the claims about deaths of children really are a substitute for "we don't think Israel is the good guys in this conflict." Maybe we disbelieve the very real atrocities that Hamas committed on 10/7, and it's promise to repeat it over and over. Maybe we don't believe that Hamas really believes its stated genocidal and antisemitic ideology. Maybe we believe all that, but think that Israel somehow provoked it, and thus doesn't have the right to impose casualties in response. Or maybe we actually do support Hamas, and want it to murder or expel the Jews of Israel.
Regardless, the tears shed for the kids are crocodile tears; none of these people called for Hamas to surrender and release the hostages to end the war, nor did they call for Egypt to let civilians, at least civilian children flee into Egypt, nor did they even call for Hamas not to embed itself in civilian infrastructure, putting children at risk. For that matter, they almost never even criticized the relevant actors for these actions.
So, again, crocodile tears. It's not that they believe that war is never just, nor do they fail to recognize that war in an urban environment inevitably means civilian casualties, including children. They just are somewhere between being neutral between Hamas and Israel, and favoring Hamas, and children are an evocative, emotional way to justify it.
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(I might add: I'm constantly accused of being all sorts of evil things, but unlike my accusers, I actually consistently called for Egypt to take in civilians to massively reduce harm to them, with guarantees from Israel that they'd be allowed back into the war, and that the US should pressure Egypt to do so. According to media reports, Israel begged Egypt to do this at the beginning of the war, and Egypt adamantly refused.)